That's the Game: Georgetown

The Hoosiers dropped a nail-biter to the Georgetown Hoyas, 91-87 in overtime.  Indiana was paced by Yogi Ferrell with 27 points, Troy Williams with 23 points, and James Blackmon Jr. with 22 points.  For those of you scoring at home, that’s 72 out of IU’s 87 points, also known as 83% of the scoring.  On the other end, D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera had a game-high 29 points, Aaron Bowen (who was averaging seven points per game) had 22 points, Joshua Smith had 14 (12 of them coming in the second half and overtime), and Jabril Trawick scored 12.

The Hoosiers held a 40-30 edge at the half, fueled by a combined 6-9 shooting from Ferrell and Blackmon Jr. to go with 21 rebounds and a 9-11 performance from the line.  They then went through an offensive dry spell to go along with a complete stop in forcing Hoya turnovers (they forced seven in the first half but only two in the second and another two in overtime) and continued trouble turning the ball over. But enter Ferrell, who had two clutch threes to tie the game, including one with eight seconds to go.  On the ensuing defensive possession, Hanner Mosquera-Perea blocked a layup attempt by LJ Peak and Collin Hartman grabbed the rebound to seal overtime.  The extra period was much the same as the second half, with Georgetown’s interior physicality causing problems for the Hoosiers as the Hoyas burst out to an early seven point lead and never looked back.

The Good:

• The Dominant Trio.  While they may not have been flawless, Ferrell, Williams, and Blackmon Jr. pretty much played the way stars are supposed to.  Ferrell may or may not have ice in his veins, hitting contested shots with seconds to go in the game.  To go with his 27 points, he had three rebounds, an assist, and a steal, and was perfect from the free throw line.  He was the floor general Indiana needs, even though he did have four turnovers.  He (and Blackmon Jr.) played a team-high 41 minutes, every one of which were needed for Indiana to stay in the game.

         Williams put in another brilliant performance overall, perhaps in an attempt to atone for a lackluster one the last time the Hoosiers played in Madison Square Garden against Louisville.  He ended with 23 points, eight rebounds, four assists, two steals, and 7-8 from the free throw line in a career high 33 minutes.  An example of his impressive play came in a key stretch in the last seven minutes of the second half, as Georgetown took its first lead since the beginning of the game.  With the Hoosiers down four, Williams hit a layup, a jumper, got an offensive rebound, hit a free throw, assisted Blackmon Jr. on a three, got a highlight-reel-worthy put-back of a Mosquera-Perea missed layup, got a steal (which he quickly passed off to Blackmon Jr., who missed the transition three), assisted Ferrell on a three, and got a layup to give the Hoosiers a three point lead with four minutes to play.  Again for those scoring at home, that’s a direct or indirect role in scoring 15 straight points in the span of about three minutes when Indiana desperately needed it.  This is the Troy Williams the Hoosiers will need come Big Ten play, and the last few games he has proved himself capable.

         Blackmon Jr. finally woke up after a rough shooting stretch that really started with the Louisville game.  Including that game, he had a total of three made deep shots in four games.  But he is a freshman and a slump was always going to happen sooner or later.  Against Georgetown, Blackmon Jr. was able to shoot his way out of the slump, hitting six of his 12 attempts.  He also pulled down seven rebounds, had an assist, two steals, and only one foul and one turnover.  These last two are particularly impressive for a freshman, and to put them into perspective, he is in the top 50 in the country (out of 2165 eligible players) in not committing fouls and is also in the top 200 in not turning the ball over.  Blackmon Jr. has been a key piece for the Hoosiers this season, so here’s to hoping that playing Louisville, Butler, and Georgetown at the end of the non-conference prepare him enough to face the Big Ten.

• Three-point Shooting.  This has been touched a bit in the previous section, but the Hoosiers shot well from deep, even if they didn’t shoot well from two-point range.  They hit 13-31 three-pointers, however 11 of those came from Ferrell and Blackmon Jr. with the remaining two coming from Johnson.  This is a team which, lacking much true inside presence, will live or die by its three-point shooting.  In regulation, the team lived by it, but in overtime they died by it, going 0-5 from deep.  Indiana is built around its ability to run its offense, and games like this really highlight that.

• Rebounding.  Surprisingly, the Hoosiers outrebounded the significantly taller Hoyas 40-35 (each with 12 on the offensive end).  And when I say that Georgetown was bigger, I’m not exaggerating, with the Hoosiers giving up inches and pounds at every single position, especially in the post.  I mean, at one point in the first half 6’7” 215 pound Collin Hartman was guarding 6’10” 350 pound center Joshua Smith.  Indiana’s ability to outrebound such a bigger, physical team will be key in Big Ten play, as the Hoosiers are shorter than every conference foe with the exception of Michigan State.

• Ball Movement (minus turnovers).  Set aside the 17 turnovers for the Hoosiers, we’ll get to those later.  The improvement this team has shown in moving the ball is incredible.  An example of this came as Ferrell passed to a cutting Hartman, who wrapped around the coming defender to dish to a cutting Williams for the slam.  It’s this willingness to make the extra pass, to find the open man which has made this team so much fun to watch and will be critical to the Hoosiers conference success.

• Grit/Maturity.  There is no statistic which will back me up or help me explain this, but Indiana showed so much more maturity than last year.  The Hoosiers of last year, they wouldn’t have made it into overtime, would have given up when Georgetown started to make its run.  This year’s version of the Hoosiers showed poise and continued to push on both ends of the court.  They didn’t let their heads hand down and they didn’t lose focus.  They just played the way they were supposed to, even if it is a young team.  With KenPom predicting 10 of the next 18 games being decided by five or fewer points, this toughness could be the difference between a tough win and a tough loss, particularly on the road in the Big Ten.

The Not-So-Good:

• Play of Mosquera-Perea.  Indiana needed Mosquera-Perea to play like a grown man going up against the grown man of Joshua Smith (a really big grown man at that).  Instead Indiana mostly got a rendition of the Invisible Man, with Mosquera-Perea contributing a total of two points in 29 minutes.  He did somehow get his hands on six boards after having a single one for much of the game, and he did have three blocks, including a key one on Georgetown’s final possession of regulation to send the game to overtime.  But when the Hoosiers needed him to be able to play significant minutes against Joshua Smith he just couldn’t do it, and even when he was in he didn’t show the polish he has in the last few games.  The plus side for Mosquera-Perea is that he won’t face anyone quite that massive through the rest of the regular season (the truly big men of the Big Ten are Amir Williams of OSU at 6’11” 250 pounds, Nnanna Egwu of Illinois at 6’11” 250 pounds, AJ Hammons and Isaac Haas of Purdue at 7’0” 261 pounds and 7’2” 297 pounds respectively, Frank Kaminsky of Wisconsin at 7’0” 242 pounds, Alex Olah of Northwestern at 7’0” 270 pounds, and Adam Woodbury of Iowa at 7’1” 245 pounds).  This is not to say that it gets easier for Mosquera-Perea, because it doesn’t (just look at Kaminsky and Haas in particular).  But at least he’s not going up against the Hulk again.

• The Bench (for the most part).  If Mosquera-Perea was the Invisible Man, I’m not even sure what that would make the Indiana bench, who accounted for two points, seven rebounds, six assists, three turnovers, a steal, and 0-6 shooting from the field in 54 combined minutes (compared to 171 combined minutes for the five starters).  Really, there were only two bright spots for the Hoosier bench, with freshman Max Hoetzel recording three rebounds against taller opponents and sophomore Hartman overall playing well.  An example of Collin Hartman doing Collin-Hartman things came in the first half when he became the de facto center (not his natural position!) guarding Joshua Smith.  In that first defensive possession for Hartman, he drew an offensive foul from Smith, his third of the half with seven minutes to go.  That sort of play shows just how far Hartman has come in about nine months since tearing his ACL, fearlessly matching up with a guy three inches and 135 pounds bigger than himself.  Aside from Hartman and to a lesser degree Hoetzel, the Indiana bench did nothing in this game, a worry going into Big Ten play.

• Post Defense (for the most part).  This goes along with the previous two points, but with no Mosquera-Perea and no bench, there was really nobody left to guard the post.  Georgetown scored 54 points in the paint, including 10 second-chance points.  Hoyas were able to drive and pass into the paint with little resistance, and the need at times to double and even triple-team Smith left players open elsewhere on the court.  There were a couple of times in the post when the double-teaming of Smith allowed a third Hoosier to come in and swipe the ball, but those instances were few and far between.

• Turnovers and Empty Possessions.  I don’t know if there’s something about Madison Square Garden in particular that causes the Hoosiers to turn it over more than usual, but the only two games where they have had turnover trouble have been played there.  It could also be something about the opponents being the two best teams the Hoosiers have faced, but they did not have the same trouble against Butler, SMU, or Pitt.  This is a young team, so turnovers are going to happen.  But unfortunately four of the miscues came from Ferrell and another three from Williams.  Both of these players have done a decent job on the season in holding onto the ball (although each has his fair share of face-palming errors), so this could be a bit of an aberration.  We’ll see once we get into conference play.

• The Officiating (Not making excuses, but would like to point some things out).  I try not to bring out “the refs sucked” argument much, but the second half seemed particularly rough for the Hoosiers.  I’m not talking about the missed call or two (because those tend to go both ways).  No, the difference in the ways fouls were called drastically changed what Indiana was able to do on the defensive end.  For example, there was an instance of Williams being shoved out of bounds on a layup attempt (even if it was clean above the belt, Smith shoved with his lower body) with no foul called, but on the other end Robinson was not even allowed to cover the cutter (with no noticeable extra contact) and had two consecutive fouls called.  There were also several times when Smith was allowed to camp out in the paint, sometimes even staying ten seconds in the lane.  This made him much more difficult to guard (which is why the three-second rule was created) because it was easier for him to get the ball near the rim.  Now again, I’m not saying that the refs changed the outcome of the game, and I’m not using this as an excuse for why the Hoosiers lost (that would be the turnovers, poor bench play, and lack of any interior presence).  But the officiating was no help to the Hoosiers in this game, although it should be a valuable experience going into Big Ten play.

Final Word:

Well, actually final words: disappointing and hopeful.  This was a winnable game for the Hoosiers, as evidenced by their 12-point lead early in the second half.  Indiana outshot and outrebounded the Hoyas, but turnovers and absence of any sort of interior strength negated that.  This win would have been the icing on the cake in the non-conference, as wins against SMU, Pitt, and Butler already give them a decent resume.  It also would have looked very good to the selection committee come March.  But this is also not a loss which will really hurt them, and could actually help them in the long run.  Indiana showed a physicality it had previously lacked and they outrebounded a bigger team.  They also shot well against the length, even as they did have trouble holding onto the ball.  With some improvement there and especially in the post, this team could find itself in the top five in the Big Ten and in the NCAA Tourney, which would be more than was expected of them going into the season.

**Noteworthy News**

With 27 points, Ferrell now has 1,047 in his career, moving him two spots on the Hoosier all-time list to 45^th.  He needs 26 to join Rick Calloway at 44^th.  Ferrell also has 334 assists in his career, keeping him at 15^th at IU, needing one to move into 14^th with Butch Carter and 21 to join Chris Reynolds and Isiah Thomas at 12^th.

Up Next:

The Hoosiers travel to Nebraska to take on the Cornhuskers in the first game of the Big Ten schedule on New Year’s Eve at 5:30pm.  It will be shown on the Big Ten Network and of course will play on the IU Radio Network.  This being the first conference contest, I will do a preview post in the next few days.